A Taste Learned by Tongue: Ise Takuan, Packed with Love by Hayashishouten’s Mother

Ise takuan pickled daikon radishes are fermented and aged in wooden barrels for two years. When you bite into one, you immediately sense the special umami flavor and sourness that seems to stream between your teeth into your mouth. This traditional taste is made by the hands of Hayashi Kazuyo, affectionately known as the mother of Hayashishouten. Her Ise takuan pickles have a depth of flavor that can only be achieved by someone who employs all five senses in the pickling process.

Only a handful of establishments, including Hayashishouten, carry on the old way of producing Ise takuan — drying handpicked Misono daikon radishes with a method called hasakake and then pickling them in huge barrels.

We spoke with Hayashi about Ise takuan, a specialty of Mie prefecture, and her desire to keep the name alive.

Preserving traditions and keeping the Ise takuan fire burning

Farmers in the Ise district, a production center of daikon radishes, began making takuan pickles as a side business in the late Edo period (1603 to 1868). The pickles’ reputation spread from the surrounding area to the Kansai region, and before long they became known as Ise’s delicious takuan pickles among pilgrims who visited the Ise Jingu shrine.

Shipments of Ise takuan peaked in the postwar period from roughly the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Hayashi says she remembers vividly all the neighboring farmers and their families coming out to help with hasakake. Hasakake is a method of drying daikon radishes by hanging bunches of them over horizontally placed poles to expose them to natural sunlight and wind. Hayashi remembers the spectacular sight of watching one set of workers toss dozens of daikon radishes up from the ground one after another to another set of workers who deftly caught them and hung them on the poles.

“It was a given that farmers would help each other out during the busy harvest season. When the season came, everyone would go around to each farm in turn to assist with the hasakake. It was a jolly time. When all the work was done, everyone would sit down together and eat. It was an event, almost like a festival, for the farmers.”

However, fewer and fewer farmers make takuan each year, due to the Westernization of the Japanese diet, labor shortages, and the decrease in the number of producers of Misono daikon radishes. The seasonal tradition of hasakake is now a rare sight, and Hayashi fears the fire of Ise takuan is in danger of going out.

Hayashi had been starting to believe that Hayashishouten’s days were numbered too, when she suddenly got an inquiry about setting up a store at VISON, a commercial complex in the town of Taki, Mie prefecture. The decision to set up shop allowed Hayashi to secure producers of Misono daikon radishes and to see brighter prospects for carrying on the pickle-making tradition.

“I’m very grateful that they fell in love with our pickles and invited me to VISON. I’m so happy to be making pickles here and keeping the name of Ise takuan alive.”

The barrel-pickling process reflects the experience of the artisan

Ise takuan are made by exposing Misono daikon radishes, which grow to about 50 centimeters in length, to the cold December winds for two weeks and then letting them mature and ferment for two years in massive wooden barrels with a capacity of 21 koku (3,788 liters). The barrels, with over 100 years of use seeped into them, were procured from a saké dealer. They are so vital to the process that they are like Hayashishouten’s partners. The wooden barrels, which breath better than other barrel types, help the nuka bran ferment more readily and bring out more aroma and flavor.

Since one barrel holds as many as 8,000 daikon radishes, the pickling operation is quite physically strenuous. It involves going into the barrel and arranging the radishes so there are no gaps between them, sprinkling salt, persimmon peels, eggplant leaves, chili peppers, and other ingredients together with rice koji bran, and stomping it all down. This process is then repeated over and over again.

Not only is it physically demanding work, it requires experience and intuition as well, such as the amount and mix of rice koji bran to sprinkle. This is why Hayashi says, “When people ask how I get this flavor, I tell them I can’t describe it in words.”

According to Hayashi, when pickling Ise takuan, the thickness and weight of the harvested daikon radishes, the feel and smell of the koji, and the temperature and humidity on the day all affect each other in subtle ways. Ise takuan, which are pickled while sensing these factors by feel and making fine adjustments, truly taste like they were made by someone’s mother. They have a flavor that no one else can replicate.

To have Ise takuan forever mentioned as an Ise delicacy

Hayashi is the third-generation owner of Hayashishouten. Although the processing method that she can’t explain in words is the reason for the delicious pickles, her worry is how and who will carry on the Hayashishouten taste. For the people who became acquainted with Ise takuan at Hayashishouten and for those customers so taken with the taste that they returned to buy again and again, the taste of Hayashishouten is the taste of Ise takuan. One can’t help but want this taste to continue on forever.

Hayashi says, however, that she hasn’t taught anyone, not even her daughter who works with her, how to make Ise takuan. Making pickles is the realm of the artisan, where sensibilities and intuition determine success. The ability to sense ever-so-slight differences in daikon ripeness and in the climate can only be fostered through experience. It is not something that can be written down and taught, nor can it necessarily be reproduced with verbal instruction.

“I’ve lived learning the taste with my tongue, so it’s impossible to communicate that to others. If someone wants to learn it, the only way is to do the work together and share the sensations of the process. I do, however, want to do everything I can to preserve the process so that the taste of Ise takuan that my customers have in their minds will continue on unchanged.”

Hayashishouten’s Ise takuan is the result of the combination of crispy Misono daikon radishes cultivated in fertile soil, an age-old barrel pickling process, and the skills of an artisan for which there is no manual. Try for yourself this mature, mellow taste that definitely should continue to be spoken about as one of Ise’s delicacies.